MIT Media Lab's Proverbial Wallets

While online tools for personal finance management like Mint and Outright make it increasingly easier to keep track of our "digital money," there's something to be said for the dwindling physicality of cash as a tangible measure of our spending habits. To restore some of this tangibility, a team of MIT Media Lab students created Proverbial Wallets – digitally enhanced wallets that "un-abstract" your virtual assets by providing tactile feedback on your personal finances.

The prototype works by communicating with your mobile device via Bluetooth, using its data to pull financial information from your bank accounts. Dubbed a "financial sixth sense," the concept offers an interesting solution to the increasing disconnect between our virtual finances and our point-of-purchase spending behavior. Bonus points for the beautiful design of the actual wallets.

Maria Popova is the editor of Brain Pickings, a curated inventory of miscellaneous interestingness. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Magazine, Design Observer and Huffington Post, and spends a shameful amount of time on Twitter.